The Vashon High School girls’ soccer team ended its season last Wednesday after falling to King’s High School in the first game of the state tournament.

The Pirates were ready and determined. The girls’ mindset was to leave it all on the field. If it was to be their last game, then they would go down fighting. If they could pull out the win and go further, then they would try as hard as they could.

The Pirates started with a defensive lineup to test the opposing team. They wanted to know how good they were. The opposing team had great skills and passing technique was spot on, but the Pirates were holding their own well. A lucky deflection into the back of the net put King’s into the lead, but the Pirates were not going to give up. They had plenty of chances and took the other team by surprise a number of times.

King’s hadn’t expected the underdogs to fight back so hard, but the Pirates had been fighting the odds since day one. By halftime, the score was still 1-0.

Unfortunately for the Pirates, King’s had received a reality check at half time. They had been told that they needed to work harder to advance. King’s came out very strong in the second half, and the game ended in a King’s victory, 4-0, but the game was actually much closer than the result implies.

The Pirates really did leave everything that they had on the field. They worked harder than they had all season. Forward Kristi Walker had some close chances that she couldn’t manage to get past the goalie, who was over 6 feet tall.

Pirate goalie Sydnee Adams worked very hard to keep Vashon in the game, but there was only so much she could do. Every player that went on the field Wednesday night worked harder than ever. Despite the loss, the Pirates were proud of their efforts and accepted the loss. King’s was a great team, and losing to the better team wasn’t such a hard pill to swallow.

Despite not advancing, the Pirates achieved their goal of going to the state tournament.

The state semi-finals are Friday at Shoreline Stadium and Redmond’s The Overlake School is taking on King’s, while Everett’s Cascade High School is taking on Yakima’s La Salle High School. The winners of each round will play each other Saturday to determine the state champion.

— Paris Crispin is a member of the VHS

Pirates soccer team.